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Metroid Prime 4 Development Restarted

Since its announcement at Nintendo’s E3 Spotlight in 2017, Metroid Prime 4 has been highly anticipated by many fans. The beloved franchise originally released on the GameCube and subsequently Wii where we saw the last entry in the series in 2008. In the decade that followed the Metroid Prime series was continuously brought up by fans with the expectation that a sequel was a matter of when, not if.

The initial announcement of Metroid Prime 4 consisted of a singular logo with the tag line ‘now in development’. This of course excited fans as it confirmed the sequel is indeed coming while at the same time tempering expectations that it would be soon.

While fans waited for more information the anticipation that the game could be nearing release built. This was partly due to the announcement that the next generation of Pokémon games, also announced at Nintendo’s 2017 E3 Spotlight with no footage shown, is scheduled to be released late 2019.

Fast forward to January 25th 2019 and fans have finally been given an update on Metroid Prime 4’s development however it is not the news many would have hoped for.

Nintendo provided a tweet linking to the YouTube video where Senior Managing Executive Officer, Shinya Takahashi explains that the development of Metroid Prime 4 has not reached the standards they seek in a sequel to the Metroid Prime series. Because of this they have restarted development of the game and are now working alongside Retro Studios going forward.

Retro Studios were the ones responsible for the original Metroid Prime Trilogy and so their inclusion in development going forward is likely to be a huge positive for fans. Video game development is a difficult process and many games get cancelled or restructured all the time. Most people would agree that it is much better to assess the current process and make changes if needed however it it sure to be a huge disappointment to many that Metroid Prime 4 is now not likely to be seen until at least 2021.

Nintendo’s openness and clarity with the development issues is to be aplauded and hopefully now they are on the right track and we can look forward to a Metroid Prime game worthy of the wait.